In an article entitled ‘Why Vine Died,’ Casey Newman reported the following, “Former executives say that a major competitive challenged emerged in the form of Instagram, which introduced 15-second video clips in June 2013.

Instagram remained stable with the introduction of new features like stories and video channels, resources of it’s parent company, Facebook, and the introduction of ads to the platform that look very similar to the posts in a user’s feed.

In addition to a total logo redesign, Instagram shifted its focus from just pictures, to longer video (from 15 sec. to one minute) and direct messaging features, such as group posts and disappearing video. Explore Channels in Discover let people discover new photo and video content based on interests. Instagram Stories added a new element to the Instagram experience showing highlights from friends, celebrities and businesses one follows without interfering with their feed. Instagram also caters to business needs through its Instagram for Business platform that allows for instant contact, detailed analytics and easy-to-follow linked content.

Most recently, Instagram released live video in their stories feature. Users can start a live stream in their Instagram story and view comments and feedback from their viewers in real time! This feature is similar to apps like musical.ly and live.ly which has over 80 million users and 62% of its users are under 21.

#StudentVoices #MillennialMondays #WhatToWatch

#MillennialMondays is a new series that aims to discuss relevant topics on careers and business from a millennial perspective.

This Week in Social Media:

Vine becomes more complex/potent and gets in closer competition with YouTube, Twitter gets in a closer closer competition with Facebook, YouTube becomes more complex, Facebook is further pushing adds in our lives, LinkedIn gets closer with SlideShare

Vine Introduces New Camera: “The new camera offers powerful ways to edit your videos, as well as the ability to import existing videos on your phone and turn them into Vines.”

Twitter Updates Timeline Feed: “Additionally, when we identify a tweet, an account to follow or other content that’s popular or relevant, we may add it to your timeline. This means you will sometimes see tweets from accounts you don’t follow.”

YouTube Updates App: “This YouTube app on TV will make it easier to find what you want through the Guide, and it brings you all the playlists, shelves and branding from channels.”

5 Creative Ways to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog Posts

Promote Your Article Across a “Wider” Variety of Platforms

Here are some examples of smaller networks:

Quora.com—A question/answer-based website founded by two former Facebook employees. What makes Quora unique is that all content is created, edited and organized by its user community. The user base tends to be more business- and academic-oriented.

Tumblr—A microblogging site that recently made headlines when Yahoo! acquired it. Its user base tends to be younger and more “hip,” making it the perfect platform to share edgier, niche-based content.

Empire Avenue—Part social network, part social media marketing tool, Empire Avenue uses gamification to enable users to broadcast content across all of the other social networks. The primary members of EAv are small businesses, social media professionals and blogger